A New Rembrandt? A Dutch Art Dealer Says He’s Found One

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The Dutch art dealer Jan Six says that “Portrait of a Young Gentleman” is by Rembrandt, and several high-profile experts agree.CreditRené van Gerritsen/Jan Six Fine Arts

By Nina Siegal

May 16, 2018

AMSTERDAM — The Dutch art dealer Jan Six is a direct descendant of a 17th-century burgher who sat for one of Rembrandt’s most important paintings, “Portrait of Jan Six.” It has remained in his family’s possession for 11 generations. Naturally, he grew up to become an old masters specialist.

Mr. Six now says that he has discovered a new Rembrandt, a portrait of an unidentified young man that he purchased at a Christie’s auction in London in 2016 for 137,000 pounds, or about $185,000. If he is right, “Portrait of a Young Gentleman” would be the first wholly unknown Rembrandt painting to be attributed in 44 years — and worth many millions more.

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Mr. Six placing the portrait into a frame during a news conference on May 16. He has published a book detailing evidence for his attribution of the picture to Rembrandt.CreditFrançois Lenoir/Reuters

He made the announcement in the Dutch national newspaper NRC Handelsblad on Tuesday, as he published a book, “Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Young Gentleman,” which details evidence he has assembled to support the attribution.

The painting has been endorsed as genuine by Ernst van de Wetering, the world’s leading Rembrandt authority, who wrote a six-volume encyclopedic register of the artist’s works, “The Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings.” With this attribution, Mr. van de Wetering places the “Portrait of a Young Gentleman” as Rembrandt painting No. 342.

“I’m absolutely convinced,” said Mr. van de Wetering in a telephone interview, adding that the painting was “no doubt an authentic Rembrandt and an interesting contribution to Rembrandt’s oeuvre.”

Norbert Middelkoop, curator of paintings, prints and drawings at the Amsterdam Museum, also said, “I fully support the attribution.”

“It’s absolutely an Amsterdam-based portrait made by Rembrandt in 1634 or ‘35,” he said in a telephone interview. “There are so many similarities to 100 percent-secured works by Rembrandt.”

Bendor Grosvenor, a British art dealer known for discovering old master “sleepers” at auction, bid on the painting at Christie’s as well. “I saw it in the flesh and I thought it was probably by Rembrandt,” he said in an interview. “And since then Jan has done a great deal of research,” he added, “and Ernst van de Wetering agrees it’s by Rembrandt, so I don’t know what more you could do, really.”

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If “Portrait of a Young Gentleman” is by Rembrandt, it will be the first wholly unknown painting by the artist to be attributed in 44 years.CreditFrancois Lenoir/Reuters

But other experts said that they were not yet ready to weigh in on the attribution.

“We’re following the research and we’re very keen to hear what people are saying,” said David de Witt, senior curator at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam. “Right now we’d like to have a chance to join everyone else in studying the work and considering the evidence.”

Christie’s had offered the painting as being from the “school of Rembrandt” and estimated its sale price at £15,000 to £20,000. Mr. Grosvenor said the work had been very dirty and covered in dark varnish, so it “wasn’t entirely easy to get to grips with the picture.”

Mr. Six spent 18 months doing historical and technical analysis of the painting, including paint sample analysis, X-radiography and other scanning technologies. He also showed the painting to about a dozen Rembrandt experts.

“It has many features in common with the Marten Soolmans portrait,” said Petria Noble, head of paintings conservation, in a telephone interview, “but it requires more research.”

“I personally think it’s possible” that it is a genuine Rembrandt, she added, “but what I still want to be able to do is to investigate further.”

Mr. Six said the painting had simply been overlooked. “My gut feeling is that the painting was hanging in a hallway of a country house for hundreds of years and people just neglected it,” he said. “It seems fantastic but this does happen.”

The last full attribution of a previously unknown Rembrandt was “The Baptism of the Eunuch,” a small early work, in 1974. A missing painting from Rembrandt’s series on the five senses, “The Unconscious Patient (An Allegory of the Sense of Smell),” was rediscovered at an estate sale in New Jersey in 2015.

Mr. Middelkoop said the new work is likely to attract a lot of scholarly interest: “It doesn’t happen so often that a new Rembrandt appears out of the blue.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Six said he would sell the painting, but he did not yet name a price.